Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 2, episode 11, 'Ted,' takes a sharp turn from the show's usual supernatural fare, introducing a robotic villain that feels more at home in a sci-fi thriller than a horror series. While the episode boasts shocking twists and a darkly unexpected plot, it ultimately falls short due to its heavy reliance on science fiction elements, leaving fans yearning for the show's signature supernatural charm.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer gained its following with its wide variety of supernatural storylines that didn't limit themselves to the show's titular monsters. However, one episode from December 1997, season 2, episode 11, titled 'Ted,' is a strong example of a notable misstep. Sarah Michelle Gellar led the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast throughout the show's run, taking the audience on a thrill ride of horror hallmarks and unexpected plot twists.
The show, along with its Angel spinoff, went on to create a sprawling saga, telling countless stories that allowed crossovers and Easter Eggs to feature in each show. Buffy the Vampire Slayer's best episodes tended to revisit the original threat to Gellar's character and her allies - supernatural forces. That being said, the franchise quite often took artful diversions from its relative predictability to subvert expectations. There are several examples of this being a triumph, but other times when the episode felt like it was from another show entirely. 'Ted' is filled with plot twists, unfortunately, it goes a step too far when trying to catch the audience off-guard. The first shocker is John Ritter's Ted Buchanan turning out to be, to put it lightly, a thoroughly unpleasant person. Ritter is known for playing nice guys, so having Ted initially seem like he belongs to this category only for him to turn out to be horrible is a brilliant way to surprise viewers. Then, the episode has Buffy accidentally 'kill' her mother's new love interest, resulting in a bizarre comeback. Given how mysterious and twist-ridden 'Ted' already was, the reveal of the villain's mechanical nature saturated the plot a little too much and made the installment feel like a parody.'Ted' throws another twist into the mix when Ritter's character is revealed to be a robotic reproduction built by the original Ted, and not a supernatural monster as the episode is quite clearly trying to imply. Instead, he was programmed to kidnap women who looked just like the wife who had abandoned him decades before and leave them to die in his bunker just like his late spouse. The sci-fi twist in 'Ted' completely ignored Buffy's horror genre. 'Ted' doesn't have a bad storyline by any means. It's shockingly dark in a way that Buffy was rarely able to pull off, which is a good thing, but it was very short on the supernatural charm the show almost always championed. In short, it was a sci-fi thriller rather than a supernatural story. Of course, 'Ted' wasn't the only episode that toyed with the show's genre, but it was one of the first big attempts to subvert expectations, and the growing pains really shone through in the form of trying too hard. Both Buffy and Giles (Anthony Head) can be seen performing their regular patrol duties at various points in the installment.
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER TED JOHN RITTER SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR SUPERNATURAL SCI-FI HORROR PLOT TWISTS
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